how much traffic culd I get if I get listed in DMOZ, is that directory too important, that everyone want to be listed there?
IMO, Very little direct traffic. But Almost On Line and some other smaller players do utilize DMOZ as a basis for spidering. Google, MSN and Yahoo comprise 75-80% of my SE traffic. All the others combined contribute 20-25% and DMOZ is seldom at the top of that list.
It depends on the category and where you are It is always useful to get listed in DMOZ because you get multiple inbound links from other directories.
On average I get about 3 referrers per week from Dmoz. That's not a lot compared to other referrers. I also get a lot of hits from directories that use Dmoz data, but I rarely get hits that come from Google's directory. I know how hard it is to get crawled by Google, so what I did was link my other sites to a site that is crawled by Google, and they started showing up in a Google search within a week (although not all of them).
In my experience, the only people who are using DMOZ to find information are DMOZ editors and their families and friends. In February or March of this year, I found two entries identifying DMOZ as the "referer" -- I believe that's the first time I've ever seen that. And I suspect that was more likely due to DMOZ editors investigating my sites than "real" visitors finding me in the index. Given the nature of DMOZ and the reality that most people other than DMOZ editors and webmasters have never heard of DMOZ, I think it's safe to say that the directory is never going to be a significant source of traffic for anyone.
I don't know "who" has been visiting my site via Dmoz, but I found out about Dmoz through Google's directory and from there started viewing sites in Dmoz's directory long before I became an editor, but I agree that most people who browse the World Wide Web (millions upon millions) most likely don’t know about Dmoz. That could hold true for any site, including DP. There are very, very few sites that are as well known as Yahoo! or Google. But, I’d bet anything that Dmoz has a niche audience in SEO-practicing Webmasters. They visit the directory often to see if their site(s) is listed and to benchmark against their already listed competitors’ websites. But, I don’t have a commercial site, so I doubt any competitors are checking out my site, but you never know. But, would it really be cost-effective for AOL to support a directory that so few people visit (editors and their families and friends)? I'd be hard-pressed to believe that most hits to my site from Dmoz (3 per week on average) are from some Meta or other editor investigating it. I also get some hits (rarely) from the editors side where an editor has visited my site and from the affiliations side used by Meta (but I suspect more). But if my site was being investigated (or something similar) I (if I were a Meta) would at least cloak the URL I'm coming from so as not to raise any suspicion. But, I know what you're talking about as far as editors visiting URLs. When I'm doing quality control I usually hit the sites from the public side rather than the editor's side, but sometimes I try not to give them a Dmoz hit. And even if my site was being visited by an editor doing quality control, that wouldn’t average out to 3 hits per week for my site. But, as another poster above said, how much “real†traffic you get from Dmoz probably depends on what part of the directory you're in, but there’s no positive way to find that out.
Assuming you're not an editor, in all the times I've asked the question about who besides editors ever uses DMOZ to find anything, this is the first time I've seen a response like this. These are "referrer" stats from your server logs? What cost? How much is AOL paying you to be an editor?
Ha ha ha ha This must have been a work of gworld, brizzie or Annie The investigation team around here
Actually the sites in my signature got a lot of traffic from DMOZ and for awhile DMOZ was constantly ranking after Google and Microsoft on 2nd or 3rd place. These sites didn't even need to be listed in DMOZ to get this traffic, so I suppose the majority were editors who were trying to find information and get some extra brownie points.
no im not an editor (how corrupt do u think i am :|) and just checked awstats and its not 30 but over a hundred that is last months, and 5 so far this month.
There are a few other things that are very unusual in your stats, just-4-teens, and I suppose this reflects your target audience: 1. by far, most of your referrals are coming from MSN Search - MSN Messenger, where teens spend a sizeable portion of their waking hours not counting TV and video games, of course links to that SE automatically 2. you have veirtually NO referrals from Google - that I find to be quite amazing 3. you run a teen chat forum - I don't intend this to be a slam at you by any means, but given the apparent activity of pedophiles and would-be pedophiles in other areas of DMOZ, has it occurred to you that those 162 referrals may have been adults looking to contact teens? I do a fair bit of work with teens myself and I would be surprised if any of them have ever heard of DMOZ.
did u even check out the site that the stats for for? it dosnt hurt to look www.ps2crib.com, if you find that in anyway a teen chat site then slap me silly the site is still young and msn is easy to optimise for i work with teens as a living so i know how to keep them as safe as possible.
I'm sure there is some cost to AOL for supplying and maintaining the servers (unless non-paid volunteers maintain them?) and the paid staff? I don't work for AOL and I'm not Meta, so this is purely speculation on my part, as I haven't researched it. But, it would be odd if there was no cost to AOL/Netscape. Does anyone else know for sure?
Wow, that's impressive, just-4-teens. Do you have any way of finding out if any of the hits from Dmoz are from returning visitors? Like if someone didn't bookmark your site and can't remember the address, but can remember they found the site in Dmoz so they go back to Dmoz thus giving you another Dmoz referral?